CENTENARIAN REMEMBERS CELEBRATED BERNERAY POET
Tilleadh Dhachaidh: Returning Home
Monday 14 June, 9pm
A 101-year-old great grandmother has been identified as the last living link to the celebrated Gaelic poet Iain Archie MacAskill as part of a revealing new television documentary.
Tilleadh Dhachaidh: Returning Home follows Alina MacAskill Simpson, the great-niece of Mr MacAskill, as she works tirelessly to return his remains from Australia to his home island of Berneray in the Hebrides.
The poet – who was known as The Bard of Berneray - emigrated to Australia in 1925 in search of a better life but died desperately homesick and in poverty after just nine years with his final wish being to return to his homeland.
As a result of publicity surrounding Alina’s quest, Katie Anderson came forward to share her memories of the writer and also provide a valuable account of the time leading up to Mr MacAskill’s emigration.
Katie, who now lives in Edinburgh, was a one-time neighbour of Iain Archie in Berneray and Iain Archie courted Katie’s sister, Mary Ann, before his departure to Australia.
Mrs Anderson said: “He knew my sister as a teenager and had a crush on her so he was in our house many a time. He worked the croft and did ploughing and fishing but he wasn’t getting anywhere so when there was a chance to go to a farm in Australia he took it.”
She described Iain Archie as a wonderful poet and a ‘very handsome lad,’ adding that she was delighted that his remains had come home to rest beside his parents.
During his time in Australia, Iain Archie wrote prolifically in Gaelic, especially songs and poems about longing for his homeland, some of which Mrs Anderson can still sing today.
His farm venture went bust during the depression and he ended up working for others in miserable conditions, before dying of kidney failure aged only 36.
Alina MacAskill Simpson, 31, who plans to write a book about Iain Archie said she was stunned when Mrs Anderson got in touch.
She said: “At the beginning of the search I didn’t think there was anyone left who remembered him as he left Scotland in 1925. When Mrs Anderson’s daughter emailed me I couldn’t believe there was someone still living who remembered him.
“She told me lots of stories. One that stuck in my head is that one night they were walking home after a wedding and he made up a poem. She’d never met anyone who could make poems up on the spot like that. She remembered him as the boy that everyone loved.”
Mrs Anderson, a former kitchen maid to celebrated Edinburgh surgeon Sir Walter Mercer, shares her memories of Iain Archie in ‘Tilleadh Dhachaidh: Returning Home’ on BBC ALBA on Monday 14 June at 9pm.